Such "Nice Things" in the living room are just useless trinkets if they don't perform. In the real world people don't buy a Porsche, or a Ford, for that matter, if it doesn't drive like it's supposed to. What universe do these people live in ? I mean, "a belief that what's true for the critic will be true for others". Who is that guy, the Queen of Spain ? Priceless.
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Latest Stereophile article about reviewing
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Katji
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Sgt. Ear Ache
Major Contributor
We can't rely on measurements. They are flawed and incomplete. They don't tell us what we need to know. Instead, we should rely on the ears of this random old guy doing who knows what!
---just to be clear, I'm not bashing old guys. I happen to be dangerously close to being one myself (if I'm not already!). I've tested my hearing though - and I top out at something just below 15khz. I'm not hearing any ultrasonics! lol. There's not many of us who don't lose hearing acuity as we age. Luckily though, measuring devices start off far more capable than our ears, and they stay that way until they accidently get dropped onto a concrete floor!
---just to be clear, I'm not bashing old guys. I happen to be dangerously close to being one myself (if I'm not already!). I've tested my hearing though - and I top out at something just below 15khz. I'm not hearing any ultrasonics! lol. There's not many of us who don't lose hearing acuity as we age. Luckily though, measuring devices start off far more capable than our ears, and they stay that way until they accidently get dropped onto a concrete floor!
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To paraphrase & reply:
"Statistical research, such as Toole's, may not apply to every listener." Okay, I'm confident there are some outliers.
"Which is why our long-term, non-blinded, reviews are so necessary." Wait, what? If I'm a unique snowflake, why on earth would some lone reviewer's opinion be more likely to apply to me?
"Statistical research, such as Toole's, may not apply to every listener." Okay, I'm confident there are some outliers.
"Which is why our long-term, non-blinded, reviews are so necessary." Wait, what? If I'm a unique snowflake, why on earth would some lone reviewer's opinion be more likely to apply to me?
Doesn't look like Jim has read any research papers in this domain. If he had, he would know that they routinely include individual listener performance. Here is a random example I just grabbed from my library:
Listeners are often then categorized according to age, sex, preference, etc. Yes, the summary is then used to create models but that is because the summary routinely agrees with individual results for the most part.
You would think before having an opinion about something, folks would take the time to understand it first.
Listeners are often then categorized according to age, sex, preference, etc. Yes, the summary is then used to create models but that is because the summary routinely agrees with individual results for the most part.
You would think before having an opinion about something, folks would take the time to understand it first.
TurtlePaul
Addicted to Fun and Learning
I was thinking about this some more. My first thought was they they need to convey some "reviewer magic" to an extent to convey how a component could ever justify a $10k price tag based on sonic quality. We all know it is audio furniture and if you measure that these components can't justify themselves (it is hard for grown men to admit they are buying bling). Some of the components even have obvious flaws at these prices. I still think this first reaction is true.
My second reaction is, they probably see the current wave coming. Floyd Toole's research shows that frequency response trumps everything else for the most part. The biggest threat to their business is Audyssey, DIRAC, MiniDSP, YPAO, and REW. $1,000 speakers with consistent directivity are here. This wave is gathering momentum. People are realizing that component upgrades aren't fixing the problems in their systems. Suddenly their system sounds better when they implement a well designed EQ ('one-button' products are getting better and better) and it becomes impossible to sell those magnesium/kevlar cones with copper phase plugs and diamond/beryllium composite tweeters to "unlock the inner detail" via a 5 kHz + 5 dB hump.
When you read Michael Fremer's review of the VS Ultra 55, then you see the in-room measurements where both the Von Schweikert's ($100k) and the Wilson Alexx ($109k) have +10 dB room modes at 50 hz and have 5 dB SBIR nulls between 100-200 hz, then you know it is a charade... without hearing either of those speakers, I know the sound in that room on that day was OK at best (and at those prices). My <$1k system, which is mostly 20 years old, plus a $100 UMIK-1 with REW, certainly sounds better than what Michael Fremer was hearing that day.
My second reaction is, they probably see the current wave coming. Floyd Toole's research shows that frequency response trumps everything else for the most part. The biggest threat to their business is Audyssey, DIRAC, MiniDSP, YPAO, and REW. $1,000 speakers with consistent directivity are here. This wave is gathering momentum. People are realizing that component upgrades aren't fixing the problems in their systems. Suddenly their system sounds better when they implement a well designed EQ ('one-button' products are getting better and better) and it becomes impossible to sell those magnesium/kevlar cones with copper phase plugs and diamond/beryllium composite tweeters to "unlock the inner detail" via a 5 kHz + 5 dB hump.
When you read Michael Fremer's review of the VS Ultra 55, then you see the in-room measurements where both the Von Schweikert's ($100k) and the Wilson Alexx ($109k) have +10 dB room modes at 50 hz and have 5 dB SBIR nulls between 100-200 hz, then you know it is a charade... without hearing either of those speakers, I know the sound in that room on that day was OK at best (and at those prices). My <$1k system, which is mostly 20 years old, plus a $100 UMIK-1 with REW, certainly sounds better than what Michael Fremer was hearing that day.
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It is a BUSINESS catering to a market
Understandable
Ridiculing it
Not understandable
There is no high road here.
But if forced to choose the less low, Stereophile, at least we know why they are doing it: capitalism.
Understandable
Ridiculing it
Not understandable
There is no high road here.
But if forced to choose the less low, Stereophile, at least we know why they are doing it: capitalism.
Talk about self important. "Whether you're an aspiring playwright, a theater critic, or an audio designer or reviewer, the validity of any approach depends on shared humanity." He puts an audio equipment reviewer in the same category as the designer. Not even the same league as the theater critic. And comparing his drivel to a playwright is hilarious.
Robin L
Master Contributor
Welcome to the world of social networking via the internet.
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While you're pulling out Harman charts, the one that shows professional reviewers as poor performers is apropos. The most charitable read I can offer there is that an expert who's become too specialized to match laypeople, by definition, cannot offer meaningful insight to those people either.
Try leaving the house once in a while. Wait - strike that. Watch "experts" on talk TV for, oh, 18.3 seconds.
There is a lot of conflation between audio equipment as art-in-itself, audio equipment as engineering art, and audio equipment as engineering tools.
Audio, because it can give us frission and is capable of auditory hallucinations (i.e. Stereo, 3D sound, etc), activates that part of the brain that says it must be something meta-physically special. Humans are very easy to induce a suspicion of the super-natural for invisible things.
Big speakers, VU Meters, and elaborate shiny things are very much art. They are sculptural, they invite a relation of one concept to another as mediated by an object.
Tubes and amps are also art-in-itself but can pull from equipment as engineering art. The worst of them simply mimic good engineering by providing visible examples of 'things happening' (see glowing tubes), but the best of them also are very well produced pieces with tight tolerances or interesting topography/designs.
Audio equipment as engineering tools is the least direct relationship because humans are pretty bad at judging sound past a very low threshold and adapt to a sound over time. Manufacturers will make claim to the latter but since most people don't know how (or don't have access) to cross check these claims they can conflate it with the former categories.
There is nothing wrong with middle-of-the-road speakers that look gorgeous, they'll probably sound good enough and the pleasure in owning such art is reason enough. But we need to be careful when we talk about Hi-Fi which part we are aiming and/or paying for.
Audio, because it can give us frission and is capable of auditory hallucinations (i.e. Stereo, 3D sound, etc), activates that part of the brain that says it must be something meta-physically special. Humans are very easy to induce a suspicion of the super-natural for invisible things.
Big speakers, VU Meters, and elaborate shiny things are very much art. They are sculptural, they invite a relation of one concept to another as mediated by an object.
Tubes and amps are also art-in-itself but can pull from equipment as engineering art. The worst of them simply mimic good engineering by providing visible examples of 'things happening' (see glowing tubes), but the best of them also are very well produced pieces with tight tolerances or interesting topography/designs.
Audio equipment as engineering tools is the least direct relationship because humans are pretty bad at judging sound past a very low threshold and adapt to a sound over time. Manufacturers will make claim to the latter but since most people don't know how (or don't have access) to cross check these claims they can conflate it with the former categories.
There is nothing wrong with middle-of-the-road speakers that look gorgeous, they'll probably sound good enough and the pleasure in owning such art is reason enough. But we need to be careful when we talk about Hi-Fi which part we are aiming and/or paying for.
Robin L
Master Contributor
I would like to note that this apologia for overpriced, underperforming, wannabe bespoke "High-End" gear precedes a review by the same scribe, gushing praise for a gratuitously spendy audiodisc player that doesn't have the decency to have a UPS digital in, which would probably set them back in less than $10 of materials, if they knew what they were doing. JA's measurements tell the real story, a bit of a botch job on multiple levels.
www.stereophile.com
CH Precision D1.5 SACD/CD player/transport
There's a school of thought that maintains that among all hi-fi components, the D/A converter is easiest to perfect or come close to perfecting. Just make sure that every sample is converted accurately, that there's little rolloff in the audioband, that aliased images are suppressed almost...
www.stereophile.com
+1I would like to note that this apologia for overpriced, underperforming, wannabe bespoke "High-End" gear precedes a review by the same scribe, gushing praise for a gratuitously spendy audiodisc player that doesn't have the decency to have a UPS digital in, which would probably set them back in less than $10 of materials, if they knew what they were doing. JA's measurements tell the real story, a bit of a botch job on multiple levels.
CH Precision D1.5 SACD/CD player/transport
There's a school of thought that maintains that among all hi-fi components, the D/A converter is easiest to perfect or come close to perfecting. Just make sure that every sample is converted accurately, that there's little rolloff in the audioband, that aliased images are suppressed almost...
All that for $46,000.00.
How long will the fleecing go on?
CH ‘Precision’ !
Keith
Keith
Robin L
Master Contributor
'Tain't like no ordinary preecision, this one's special.
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charleski
Major Contributor
I’ve just got round to reading this, and it includes a revealing comment:
In other words, once the excitement of having a new $$$$$ shiny box wears off, the actual process of listening to music is something he finds rather boring. I can’t help feeling that audio reviews should ideally be carried out by someone who actually likes listening to music….
My read of that quote is that the placebo effect of high cost, newness, etc. wears off, leaving the reviewer with the real sound. He then needs another hit of the placebo with something new to think it is exciting again.
Sgt. Ear Ache
Major Contributor
It's hard to imagine how anyone could make such a statement without recognizing the fundamental lunacy it reveals. He's suggesting that the act of switching out one component for another (of course more expensive) component has such a significant impact on the sound that it makes music surprising. At the same time however, the effect is so fleeting that it disappears after a short period of "acclimatization" and we then need to upgrade that component to move up to the next level of "surprise." Think about that for a minute. We're talking about a hobby that has been around now for what, at least 50 years in it's "modern" form. If we're to accept the notion that every few months or so there's a new generation/iteration of components that "bring new surprises" to our music...what did our music sound like 50 years ago? I mean people still listen to and enjoy amps from the 70s...in fact some advocate that they sound better than modern amps. What "magic" is there that has been added by all those decades of newer and better stuff? If buying a more expensive dac today brings new surprises to our music compared to the dac we bought 5 (or 4 or 2) months ago...how could anyone even stand to listen to CDs in the 90s?? They must have sounded like sludge! lol...
Robin L
Master Contributor
Moved a big distance to a smaller space a few years ago. Had to disperse a lot of audio gear, LPs, accessories, that I would no longer have room for. I'm left with something like 1500 CDs, a pair of speakers suitable for a desktop, an amp, a sub, a rolling roadie rack to hold the amp & sub and Blu-Ray player. Living in a smaller space would mean spending more time listening via headphones. So I got the Topping E30 and L30 and, after getting a number of different headphones, settling on Drop 6XX. I used to buy headphones pretty regularly, got something like 6 pair I bought within the last five years. But I'm through with lateral moves. I'd have to spend a lot of money I don't have to do much better than the 6XXs.
That idea of the need for new and "shiny" got a hold of me a long time ago. But what I've been noticing as of late is how that sound all by itself ought to be "boring", there really isn't an aspect of the sound I'm getting now that excites me the same way as, say, the Stax earspeakers that used to be my daily driver. At the same time, I'm also not noticing the sound of the gear as much as the really wide variety of sounds when moving from recording to recording. The sound of the music itself is easier to hear. Nothing sounds "thin" and "bright" like the Stax 'phones can. The sound is transparent in that there seems to be minimum intermodulation of different sounds, of all the different voices in the mix. It's easier to listen into the music with this gear. The Topping E/L30 is not glamorous looking, not "shiny". And its sound isn't "shiny". It just seems to get out of the way of the music, not calling attention to itself, like the Stax or Philips Fidelio headphones can.
And after all is said and done, I get more sonic pleasure from playing my own acoustic guitar, a sweet-toned Martin DRS2. There's more nuance than I ever hear from recordings. The better I get at playing guitar, the less I want to hear a recording. I'm playing music with others more than I used to, find that much more satisfying than playing a recording I've heard many times before. If I had a spare $50,000 to burn, I'd spend more on guitars than on shiny audio widgets. YMMV of course.
Stereophile exists to promote audio gear [mostly] and recordings [slightly]. And I suppose Jim Austin is between something of a rock and a hard place. If $50,000 worth of disc transport + DAC is audibly indistinguishable from $500 worth of the same, what would be the point of the $50,000 CD/SACD player with specs that are actually worse than the $500 Blu-Ray player + DAC? How is this justified? Because it's "shiny"?
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